Lawsuit: Best Buy has “anti-price matching policy”

Best Buy's alleged "price match guarantee" is less of a guarantee and more of …

Best Buy may be forced to change its price matching policy, or at least be more transparent about its practices. A lawsuit against the company alleging false advertising and deceptive practices has been approved as a class action by a US District Court in New York, giving the plaintiffs more steam in their fight against the big box retailer. Even more interesting, however, is that the process of approving the suit has exposed some of Best Buy's dirty laundry.

The original lawsuit was brought by New York resident Thomas Jermyn in January of 2008 and was granted class action status as of last week. In his suit, Jermyn targets Best Buy's "price match guarantee" as a ploy to lure unsuspecting customers into the stores while actively practicing an "Anti-Price Matching Policy" among managers and employees.

Savvy deal hunters in the audience are already aware that trying to get a real price match on something at Best Buy can be an exercise in futility. It's not uncommon to hear anecdotal grumblings that Best Buy will find every excuse to not adhere to its publicly-advertised policy—the store is out of (or low on) stock, Best Buy doesn't match Internet prices, model numbers don't match up, etc. However, according to court documents, these instances apparently aren't just a result of clueless retail drones—it appears Best Buy actively encourages employees to use these very excuses to avoid offering the customer a good deal.

"What is the first thing we do when a customer comes in to our humble box brandishing a competitor’s ad asking for a price match? We attempt to build a case against the price match," reads an internal company memo from October of 2006, which is quoted in the court documents. "Let's walk through the 'Refused Price Match Greatest Hits:' Not same model? Not in stock at the competitor? Do we have free widget with purchase? Is it from a warehouse club (they have membership fees, you know)? Limited Quantities? That competitor is across town? We’ve got financing! Is it an internet price? It’s below cost! What about my NOP?"

Best Buy's defense for the existence of this document is that its author is a "long-standing employee with a sense of humor." Further evidence provided in the complaint belies that claim. Numerous Best Buy customers are cited as saying the retailer refused their requests on multiple occasions, or in cases where they already purchased the item, Best Buy told them to return it and pay a hefty restocking fee if they wanted to buy from a competitor with a lower price. This, of course, defeats the entire purpose of trying to get a price match in the first place.

Additionally, none of these technicalities are mentioned in the public-facing version of Best Buy's policy. "If you are about to make a purchase and discover a lower advertised price offered by a local retail competitor on the same available brand and model, let us know and we'll match that price on the spot," reads Best Buy's website. "Already bought? We'll refund you the price difference from our own sale price, or 110% of the difference from our competitor's sale price, during the return and exchange period on your product." Questions on that page, such as "What is considered a local retail competitor?" come with ambiguous answers that seem to contradict the internal memo encouraging employees to deny matches on the basis that the competitor is "across town."

At best, the retailer is extremely confused about the meaning of its own price match guarantee and has no idea how to treat customers. At worst? We leave that as an exercise to the reader. Either way, the end result is a group of buyers who are done feeling jerked around and want to make Best Buy pay for it. HD Guru, which has been following the story closely, spoke with the attorney representing Jermyn, Michael Braunstein, who said that readers who have been refused a price match should contact him by e-mail or phone (mbraunstein@kgglaw.com or 845-356-2570). Though this particular lawsuit is limited to New York residents, those outside of New York are encouraged to voice their concerns as well.

Further reading:

Search PACER for case number 1:08-cv-00214-CM-DCF in the Southern District of New York

I have had to bring in printed documentation of both the competitors prices (when Circuit City was still around), as well as Best Buys price match policy (printed off BestBuy.com), and the customer service rep called up Circuit City to verify they had the item in stock. *Then* Best Buy did a price match - I used it mostly on price matching games.

I thought it was a bit too much of a hassle. Now I just buy off Amazon, and only go to best Buy if I have gift card or Reward Zone certificates to spend.

Originally posted by ShapeGSX:I've probably price matched 30 times at Best Buy. I've never once had an issue. Hell, they didn't even check to see if it was in stock at the store I was matching.

Um, how is this remotely relevant and why did you feel the need to share it? You could have more simply said "Hey Ars, like most people I have never taken a Probability & Statistics class!" That would have told us what we need to know not just on this occasion but for future posts you might make as well.

"Hey Ars, like most people I have never taken a Probability & Statistics class!"

Hey Ars, unlike most people, I have taken a Probability & Statistics class! And I learned lots, like correlation does not imply causation. God I hate rude people.

The fact that not being able to get a price match in one place doesn't mean you will not get it in another establishment of the same company, and vice versa. Management is different in every place. And I am pretty sure Best Buy has their return policy printed on the back of every sales receipt (like every single retailer) and hanging in the front of the store in a wall. It is your duty to read it, not theirs to read it to you.

Anyway, Best Buy is a place I visit once every three months if so. I really don't understand the point of price matching anyway (PR bullmanure, maybe?), and I really dislike price hunters. They usually are extremely rude and just want to buy something at a set price because somebody else has them. Sure, I like a good deal like everybody else, but if you come to a store the last day of a sale expecting to get your hands on a product and you find them out of stock, it is your damned fault you're late and they ran out. You don't deserve to get that product price matched anywhere else.

I find the USA rewards stupidity a lot. If idiots are rewarded, explain to me again why am I going to school to get an engineering degree?

Any retailer's price match policy is used to get you in the door. Price matching hurts the retailer, but is a wonderful marketing mechanism. So it's obvious that any retailer doing a price match will want to do deny it in any way possible.

That said, there's a few billion ways that companies avoid price matching - Wal-Mart does it by having "Wal-Mart Models" that can't be matched anywhere else. (Or I've found, if they can, Wal-Mart's prices aren't that much cheaper anyhow). Manufacturers have released two practically identical units with identical features, but different model numbers, so to differentiate between Best Buy and upscale retailers as well (if you think Best Buy is expensive, some of the upscale retailers selling similar goods can command a hefty price increase).

Ditto with store models and other crap - think "Best Buy exclusive!". Yeah, it's just a tweaked version of some existing model.

Or bundles. Or rebates (mail in and otherwise).

If it's a cheap item, you can normally get price matched easily enough. If it's an expensive item, I find it's far better to do the price match at the very last minute, throwing in an extended warranty if need be (you can always return it).

Um, how is this remotely relevant and why did you feel the need to share it? You could have more simply said "Hey Ars, like most people I have never taken a Probability & Statistics class!" That would have told us what we need to know not just on this occasion but for future posts you might make as well.

How was it not relevant? It's a story about Best Buy price matching and ShapeGSX commented that he's never had a problem getting Best Buy to honor a competitive price. Seems very relevant to the story to me.

In addition, what's up with the rude reply to his post? If you disagreed with his post you could have simply stated that and, to follow up, actually argued your point vs. insulting him.

Personally, BB isn't my favorite place, but the couple times I have gone in for a price match they've honored it no questions asked.

Well no duh Best Buy is really shady about price matching. Once I tried to price match a DVD player from their own website which is $10 cheaper than in store, and they tried to deny my price match by saying the DVD player was the same price online as in store and showed me a bogus intranet webpage. I showed the sales guy the real webpage from bestbuy.com on my iphone and he made some stupid excuse like oh I forgot that intranet page is just for training purposes. yah right!

Another time I tried to pricematch a 40" LCD from fry's and at first they said they didn't have it in stock but when I said its right there in the corner they tried stalling me hoping I'd go away or something. Eventually they were like we can't pricematch because we wont be making enough profit... WTF??? I went home and wrote a letter complaining about the crappy experience and corporate sent me a $25 gift card.

"Not same model?"Makes sense to me, why should they match the price of a competitors 42" LCD tv if it's not the same model, a lot of TVs have the same features and specs but have different prices. I see no reason why Best Buy should match prices because they are similar.

Not in stock at the competitor? Again, makes sense to me. If the competitor is just advertising a "door buster" product that they only have 5 of in stock, why should Best Buy match the price of the competitor with their entire inventory?

Is it from a warehouse club (they have membership fees, you know)? Best Buy doesn't, free to go in.

Do they have a free widget?Often customers will try to "combine" deals, lower price of the other store plus the free add on at Best Buy. Obviously Best Buy has every right to deny this.

It's all listed on the back of the recieipt anyways.

It doesn't seem that people understand the entire IDEA of price matching anyways. It's not to be friendly and nice to the customer, it's to prevent competitors from lowering their prices. If Circuit City were to lower its prices in an attempt to grab a larger market share, Best Buy would just follow suit and match the lower prices and retain their market share.

So it's in Best Buy's best interest to follow through with their price matching, I've never had any problem with it (matched much lower priced TVs of competitor's), any problem with price matching would have to come from incompetent local management.

"Not same model?"Makes sense to me, why should they match the price of a competitors 42" LCD tv if it's not the same model, a lot of TVs have the same features and specs but have different prices. I see no reason why Best Buy should match prices because they are similar.

Not in stock at the competitor? Again, makes sense to me. If the competitor is just advertising a "door buster" product that they only have 5 of in stock, why should Best Buy match the price of the competitor with their entire inventory?

Is it from a warehouse club (they have membership fees, you know)? Best Buy doesn't, free to go in.

Do they have a free widget?Often customers will try to "combine" deals, lower price of the other store plus the free add on at Best Buy. Obviously Best Buy has every right to deny this.

It's all listed on the back of the recieipt anyways.

It doesn't seem that people understand the entire IDEA of price matching anyways. It's not to be friendly and nice to the customer, it's to prevent competitors from lowering their prices. If Circuit City were to lower its prices in an attempt to grab a larger market share, Best Buy would just follow suit and match the lower prices and retain their market share.

So it's in Best Buy's best interest to follow through with their price matching, I've never had any problem with it (matched much lower priced TVs of competitor's), any problem with price matching would have to come from incompetent local management.

I have not tried price matching at best buy. the only thing I have learned from shopping there is to always pay with cash. The last time I payed with a credit card, my signature on the reciept was matched to fine print on the back of the reciept and they signed me up to a $10 a month discount club. I have payed cash there for the last 12 years because of that.

I expected the usual Ars community pile on against BB, but instead a fairly reasoned response to a one sided article was found. Kudos, this discussion surpassed my expectations.

I also was not shocked by the internal memo. The only ones that seemed questionable to me were the financing one(who dosen't have financing?) and the accross town one, although that one could be put in context to mean in a huge metro area like New York City or Los Angeles. I agree that most people don't understand the point of a price match, its a marketing tool, and a market price stabilization tool, nothing more or less.

To my mind, the scandal where they were using an intranet site to show inflated internet prices was far more of a consumer scam(I don't remember if that was BB or CC though).

Price-matching = mail-in rebate. Yeah, they'll give it to you if you kick-up a fuss and provide documented proof and be resilient enough. Naturally, your own mileage may vary depending on whether the incompetent part-time teenage clerk reads the billboard above the water fountain or not - never mind having his own company email account.

The "not the same model" is a little sneakier than you may be giving them credit for. I've been seeing more trivially differentiated models of things like a particular DVD player variation sold only by one retailer. "Oh, but ours has a blue play button on the remote and their is green!"

Then there's the captive brand issue. It's easy to price guarantee a sale of "the same model" of Chinese OEM <insert pejorative or neutral descriptive noun as you see fit> when you're the only one labeling it "Insignia."

[Edit: typo. When are we going to get edit buttons on the new comments page? The Ajax is cool and all for viewing, but clicking on my name, clicking on view my posts, clicking on the topic, finding the post, and clicking the edit icon is getting old.]

I too am a firm believer in the whole idea of price matching as a marketing scam along the same lines as mail in rebates. Advertised to get you in the door, but unlikely to pan out in your favor. It's just better to go to wherever the place with the lowest price is and buy there. Unless, of course, that place is out of stock. Which leads to my one and only time trying to pricematch something at a Best Buy.

Back when I lived in a rather crappy town, I could drive about an hour and a half to a bigger town that had actual stores. Close enough for a trip on your weekend. I was in the market for a new TV and a Sony 32 inch XBR CRT was looking quite good (that should tell you how long ago this was). Circuit City advertised they had the model I wanted, the price looked good, so I went down there. But they were out of stock. Maybe by the end of the week, the sales clerk said. So, I went over to Best Buy. They had the TV, in stock, but for more. So, I tried to get them to price match. The clerk there, though, didn't want to discount it. First he complained that I didn't bring anything to prove they were cheaper. Then, after some minor complaints, he finally relented enough, and said he'd have to check the price with the competitor. He then tells me that he can't price match since the other store doesn't have any stock. I told him I knew that and that's why I came here. He then tried to sell me on why I should buy it for the sticker price, how he could give me a discount on an extended warranty, etc. I told him no, not interested in extras, if you can't match their price, I'm just not interested. I left while he tried to sell me on using their financing. I later bought the TV at Circuit City, after waiting a week and calling them to see if they had one; I don't know if Best Buy every lowered their price or not.

TL;DR version: CC was out of stock, BB refused to price match CC on a technicality, so I walked.

Originally posted by fxds:I fail to understand why otherwise intelligent, informed people still shop at Best Buy.

1. Latency. It takes 1 hour to buy something at a local Best Buy. It takes 2-3 days to get something shipped from Amazon or Newegg.

2. Free returns. If you think there is a good chance you will need to return a product (e.g. you are buying it for someone else, you want to avoid dead pixels, etc.), it's much better to buy it from a brick-and-mortar store (no need to pay for return shipping or restocking fees, plus your money gets refunded immediately).

I don't know Best Buy (don't live in the US) and I don't doubt the article but offering good prices on goods they don't have in stock is probably one of the biggest marketing scams out there. I can understand BB's reluctance to price match such dubious offers.

Um, how is this remotely relevant and why did you feel the need to share it? You could have more simply said "Hey Ars, like most people I have never taken a Probability & Statistics class!" That would have told us what we need to know not just on this occasion but for future posts you might make as well.

How was it not relevant? It's a story about Best Buy price matching and ShapeGSX commented that he's never had a problem getting Best Buy to honor a competitive price. Seems very relevant to the story to me.

That's the point, it's not relevant. It's like an article on how there's a recall on some product with a 90% failure rate and someone says "well, it's never happened to me!" Um, yeah, duh. If the failure rate is 90% then that means 10% of people had no issues right? For anything major that's going to be a lot. In this situation, they are trying to establish an overall behavioral pattern, not an absolute, and thus individual anecdotes are not even remotely important. Obviously in an organization as large as Best Buy there will be individuals who choose to do things their own way, no matter what. What matters is the overall average and if there is a statistically significant, relevant pattern of misbehavior. You, like many, think that individual tales matter, and you're wrong, which is why Prob&Stats is so important in my opinion. Because a lot of it is not intuitive or "common sense" or whatever, it certainly wasn't to me. The human brain loves to find patterns in everything, to extrapolate, ignore the common for the outlier, etc. It's hardwired, and makes us good survivors. But it also doesn't work for everything.

Price match - mice smash. Who gives a flying Truck? If I find it for a price I want - why should I go to BB and ask them to match it? Why not buy it at the first place?

I don't normally do it, but sometimes it is convenient. On the way to the airport before a vacation, I needed to pick up another SD card. Circuit City had them for $13 (and several other places were under $16), but Best Buy was on the right side of a large highway that's a pain to cross and then get back on. Best Buy wanted $35 for the same card when I stopped in. I showed them the CC price and they matched it.

Price matching has its usefulness. Sure, they could have told me to go to Circuit City, and I would have. They would have lowered my opinion of Best Buy in the process, and they would have lost out on profit (if everyone else can sell at $13-16, then BB's cost is lower than that).

I use this policy quite often as I prefer to buy at Best Buy for the rewards and to stick it to them. While they do try to give you a runaround about matching the price they usually concede and the manager overrides the price. I have never been pleased with the staff at my local BB and if using this marketing tool to match a competitors price (which many times is below their cost) and screw them on their monthly bonuses is just fine by me. LOL

That's the point, it's not relevant. It's like an article on how there's a recall on some product with a 90% failure rate and someone says "well, it's never happened to me!" Um, yeah, duh. If the failure rate is 90% then that means 10% of people had no issues right? For anything major that's going to be a lot. In this situation, they are trying to establish an overall behavioral pattern, not an absolute, and thus individual anecdotes are not even remotely important. Obviously in an organization as large as Best Buy there will be individuals who choose to do things their own way, no matter what. What matters is the overall average and if there is a statistically significant, relevant pattern of misbehavior. You, like many, think that individual tales matter, and you're wrong, which is why Prob&Stats is so important in my opinion. Because a lot of it is not intuitive or "common sense" or whatever, it certainly wasn't to me. The human brain loves to find patterns in everything, to extrapolate, ignore the common for the outlier, etc. It's hardwired, and makes us good survivors. But it also doesn't work for everything.

That's great and all, but we're posting comments on an internet website. We're not actually providing any data for the case are we? Even people posting that they were denied a price match are purely anecdotal as well. So I don't see how his comment was not relevant to the article.... the article, NOT the case. See the difference?

Originally posted by ShapeGSX:I've probably price matched 30 times at Best Buy. I've never once had an issue. Hell, they didn't even check to see if it was in stock at the store I was matching.

Um, how is this remotely relevant and why did you feel the need to share it? You could have more simply said "Hey Ars, like most people I have never taken a Probability & Statistics class!" That would have told us what we need to know not just on this occasion but for future posts you might make as well.

It is relevant because the article said this: "Savvy deal hunters in the audience are already aware that trying to get a real price match on something at Best Buy can be an exercise in futility"

I'm a "savvy deal hunter" and I've never had an issue getting a price match at Best Buy. That statement in the article made my comment relevant.

Your comment, however, is not relevant in the least. But I'm not going to be a jerk about it.

@Jeff R., I shop Amazon instead of BB for all my DVDs because even in the cases where the BB price on something is cheaper, it's more after taxes. No taxes and no shipping charge is worth a 2-day wait. Same with other items they carry, and in the case of TVs they always make you negotiate down from the inflated price, trying to get you into a warranty deal for extra $$. Online it's a lot easier to find good deals on good TVs, and you're avoiding a large amount in taxes as well.

Of course this may depend on how much the sales tax is in your area, but in the Chicago area where it's upwards of 10%, it adds up fast.

I have to agree with many previous posters. My personal experience with Best Buy (in Canada anyway) is that they have always price matched. Most of the time I do a price match right in the store by showing them a website with a lower price on in-stock items.

I recently bought a Canon 50D a BB and again they price matched it. It was $1,450CDN, and I found a store (online) that had it for $1,200CDN so they gave me $275 off (10% of the difference) and I had a $100 reward zone rebate so it was kind of a sweet deal ($1,075 total)... :-)

I would guess that if the FTC and state attorney general don't get to them that a lawsuit will get their attention pretty fast. Either it's your policy, or it's NOT your policy. Make up your mind and make sure you and your stores all know about it. Customers don't like getting jerked around by the store or the management. Have ONE policy and stick to it. I don't much like the selection of merchandise at the local BB, or their moving things all over the store as they re-arrange things (what, so it takes me twice as long to find something I USED to know where the heck it was located....)? I also don't like that either there is NO ONE around to ask questions or that the ones who are there DON'T KNOW ANYTHING.

The reason to use BB's price match is that BB actively advertises it, and price matches in general can be more convenient than traveling to multiple stores.

If any business has a corporation-wide policy (even an informal one) of intentional deceit to avoid honoring an advertised deal, they should be smacked down with a big fine (and bad publicity) so they'll be averse to doing it again.

Dueling anecdotes is always tedious, since one often gets little comfort from the successes other folks had.

My main complaint about Best Buy is the lack of discounts on things I WANT, like internal hard drives. Chase sent out a coupon to get 10% back in gift cards at BB because Chase's Circuit City Rewards card wouldn't help me anymore, and lo, no internal hard drives allowed.

Price matchs come up occasionally, but often I end up matching the BB price elsewhere when BB has no stock. Odd how the restocking of items appearing in the flyers seems to be an afterthought...

I worked at BB for quite a while selling computers (no longer do). The price matching policy was, of course, covered in employee training, and they were quick to point out several of the things listed in this article.

To be honest, I don't see anything wrong with any of their policies, including encouraging their employees to be vigilant about price matching policies. For example, I sold computers. If someone came in with an ad from another store, of course we would need to verify if it were in stock at that store. Of course we would need to verify if it's not an online only sale. Of course we would need to verify that it's the exact same model as the model we're selling (which is actually the biggest hinderance for price-matching computers).

All that makes perfect sense to me, because those are the requirements for price matching. BB is perfectly justified to ensure that if it is going to match prices that it is actually matching prices for the exact items that are available in local markets. To me, there's nothing dishonest or shady about it.

The only questionable part of this is the quotation from one of the higher-ups, but you can't really fault the guy for wanting to make sure his company is still making a buck. Moreover, he's not encouraging any dishonesty, even though it looks like it. If you read closely, he's simply reiterating the policies associated with price matching and ensuring employees are meeting those criteria when entering a price match.

Much ado about nothing, if you ask me, and I suspect the lawsuit won't go anywhere. I can't see anything here that indicates a legal breach, much less a breach of their own price match policy.

As a consumer, I've taken advantage of BB's price matching as well.

I've shopped at BB for years, and I have price-matched there on two major purchases. The first one was a laptop computer. I purchased it for $1200, and two weeks later, the price dropped to $900. Interestingly, the price dropped internally, at their own store; however, I didn't encounter any problems.

The second time was a TV that was advertised at a cheaper price at competitor. No questions asked. They matched it right there with no hassle.

To be fair, I did my homework about their polices beforehand, and I made sure that the TV I was purchasing was actually available down the road. Because I could show that it was -- which should be my responsibility, as I'm the one benefiting -- there was no hassle at all.

I actually had to go to BB the other day to waste 2 gift cards i got there. I just bought RE5 because i refuse to buy anything other the video games there, like $45 for an HDMI cable and such. Thank god there is still other optiong by me MicroCenter, 6th Ave, and B&H.

Originally posted by ovulator:"Not same model?"Makes sense to me, why should they match the price of a competitors 42" LCD tv if it's not the same model, a lot of TVs have the same features and specs but have different prices. I see no reason why Best Buy should match prices because they are similar.

Not in stock at the competitor? Again, makes sense to me. If the competitor is just advertising a "door buster" product that they only have 5 of in stock, why should Best Buy match the price of the competitor with their entire inventory?

Is it from a warehouse club (they have membership fees, you know)? Best Buy doesn't, free to go in.

Do they have a free widget?Often customers will try to "combine" deals, lower price of the other store plus the free add on at Best Buy. Obviously Best Buy has every right to deny this.

It's all listed on the back of the recieipt anyways.

It doesn't seem that people understand the entire IDEA of price matching anyways. It's not to be friendly and nice to the customer, it's to prevent competitors from lowering their prices. If Circuit City were to lower its prices in an attempt to grab a larger market share, Best Buy would just follow suit and match the lower prices and retain their market share.

So it's in Best Buy's best interest to follow through with their price matching, I've never had any problem with it (matched much lower priced TVs of competitor's), any problem with price matching would have to come from incompetent local management.

Me thinks Ovulator and his 2 posts (both in this thread) is a plant or an employee.=)